Proper cleaning of a firearm after use is essential to ensuring the firearm retains its accuracy, safety, and reliability. With each firing, the breech and bore of a firearm accumulate residue such as powder, priming compound, and copper fragments from ammunition casings. In addition, environmental elements such dirt, snow, and moisture can accumulate in the bore, causing further fouling. Fouling and debris may also accumulate in the firearm's action due to its design, or improper maintenance. Failure to remove the residue and debris results in a decrease in the firearm's accuracy and precision, and may even pose a safety hazard to the operator. Therefore, proper cleaning is one of the most important elements of firearm ownership.
Civilians who shoot and clean firearms often devise their own storage cases to store firearm cleaning materials. An example is empty ammunition can. In many instances, firearm owners also fashion their own tools to aide in the cleaning process. However, these homemade storage cases and cleaning tools are generally not portable or lightweight. When cleaning a firearm, components or cleaning tools may be set aside during the cleaning process and, due to their small size, may be misplaced or lost. Therefore, civilians have a need for a lightweight and compact firearm cleaning kit that stores cleaning tools and provides additional storage capability.
Military personnel need to be able to clean their weapons in the field, preferably immediately after shooting so that their firearm is ready for use at all times. An important aspect of the cleaning process is that the cleaning kit be compact and lightweight, organized, and able to store firearm components or spare tools and cleaning supplies. Therefore, military personnel also need for a lightweight and compact firearm cleaning kit that stores cleaning tools and provides additional storage capability for the cleaning of military weapons.
To answer the need for portable, compact, and lightweight storage cases for firearm cleaning materials and tools, many different types of firearm cleaning kits have been designed for military and consumer use. Specialized, compact cleaning kits have been custom-designed to store the precise tools and components needed to thoroughly clean a particular firearm. For example, firearm cleaning tool kits have been designed to store specific cleaning tools such as brushes, picks, scrapers, and rods.
One drawback to current firearm cleaning kits is that they are relatively inflexible with regards to storing additional accessories, tools, and components. Compact cleaning kits place a premium on size, and typically have storage compartments only for the components sold with the case, thereby leaving no room for additional gear. Pockets may be sewn into a compact case, but pockets may not permit secure storage of tools or components that are different sizes. Other storage spaces such as foam cut-outs are ideal for a particular or specialized tool, but are inadequate for storing tools and components of varying size.
One cleaning kit in the prior art provides an elastic strap extending transversely across the inside of the case, sewn to the case at both ends, to hold additional cleaning materials such as bore solvent. Another firearm cleaning kit provides an elastic strap sewn into the inner fold of the case to permit temporary storage of tools while the user is cleaning the firearm. While both these straps attempt to provide flexibility in tool or component storage, they are deficient in that the strap is not adjustable. Therefore, the strap is only effective in holding either a single large component or multiple small components in a single group. If the strap is used to store multiple small components in a single group, and one or more components are removed, the remaining components will fall out.